À partir d'aujourd'hui… Reconsidering Postphotography

Conference Schedule

We are now fully immersed in the second digital revolution whose instruments are the Internet and the smartphone, whose supports are the web and the personal device. This international conference, À partir d'aujourd'hui ... Reconsidering Postphotography has been organized by three long-term institutional partners in photographic studies, Concordia University (CU), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), and Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal (MPM), to address the artistic and social impacts of current photographic technology. 

Inspired by curator Joan Fontcuberta's theme for the 2015 MPM biennale, The Post-Photographic Condition, the partnership's scientific committee has identified three axes of research.

The first is memory, and how the digital revolution shapes the collective identity of youth and the imaginations of artists.

The second is historiography, and how 'thinking photography' in the digital age causes us to re-examine whole categories of images that photography history has ignored.

The third is truth, and how the post-photographic era has impacted on photography as a source of verifiable knowledge. Nine invited scholars will give papers and form panels to discuss these issues. Other issues will be raised in a graduate student session organized by and for doctoral and postdoctoral students.

Three keynote speakers – Quentin Bajac, Chief Curator of Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Joanna Sassoon, Australian archivist and photographic historian; and Vanessa Schwartz, professor of history, visual culture, and film at the University of Southern California – will bridge and complicate the conference themes.

• All events are free and open to the public. Registration is strongly recommended.

Support for this event has been generously provided by the Aid to Research Related Events (ARRE) program of the Office of Research, Concordia University; the Australia Council for the Arts; the Canadian Centre for Architecture; the Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University; Figura, Centre de recherche sur le texte et l'imaginaire, UQAM; the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, Concordia University; Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal and Speaking of Photography, Concordia University.